Each week, Queerty picks one blowhard, hypocrite, airhead, sanctimonious prick or other enemy of all that is queer to be the Douche of the Week. Have a nominee for DOTW? E-mail it to us at holla@queerty.com.

Massachusetts attorney Daniel Avila once served within the Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage within the Policy Advisor for Marriage and Family to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

He served, that is, until he wrote “Some Fundamental Questions on Same-Sex Attraction,” a column for the nation’s oldest Roman Catholic newspaper The Boston Pilot. In the column he said that Satan messes with pregnant women’s hormones and turns their unborn babies into homogays.

His Satanic snafu started a slow-motion theological train wreck so entertaining that it’s worth replaying bit-by-bit—mostly because it reveals just how unintentionally progressive both Avila and the Boston Catholic Church really are!

In his piece, Avila—who has no apparent medical or scientific training—stated:

“…the scientific evidence of how same-sex attraction most likely may be created provides a credible basis for a spiritual explanation that indicts the Devil. Any time natural disasters occur, we… people of faith look back to Scripture’s account of… angels who rebelled and fell from grace. In their anger against God, these malcontents prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. They continue to do all they can to mar, distort and destroy God’s handiwork.

Therefore, whenever natural causes disturb otherwise typical biological development, leading to the personally unchosen beginnings of same-sex attraction, the ultimate responsibility, on a theological level, is and should be imputed to the evil one, not God.”

Avila actually says that LGBTs are born that way—a pretty progressive view for a Catholic leader. It’s just that Avila also thinks that Lucifer and his minions somehow alter the spiritual content of amniotic fluid in such a way as to produce “evil gay hormones” that turn the souls of unborn fetuses gay.

“Avila’s bizarre theories are unscientific and defamatory… Telling Catholic mothers with LGBT children that Satan entered their womb and caused their child’s homosexuality is spiritual abuse of the highest order.”

Truth Wins Out’s Director of Communications and Development John Becker added:

“It is outrageous for an official advisor to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to make such an appalling statement at all, much less in the approved newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston. The USCCB and the Boston Archdiocese must unequivocally condemn Avila’s bigoted remarks, or explain to LGBT Catholics and their parents why they refuse to do so.”

Immediately after the article ran, the liberal Catholic Paulist Center of Boston sent The Boston Pilot an open letter asking other Catholics to boycott the newspaper:

“The highly questionable theology of this writer… directly and intentionally causes pain for gay Catholics, their families, especially their mothers, their friends and their worship communities. The article has no scriptural basis, vague Catholic theological constructs, and no connection with the Gospel of Christ.

We have removed this issue of The Pilot from the Paulist Center and will not be offering the next issue with part II of this article. We do not want to support Mr. Avila inflicting unnecessary and undeserved pain on members of our congregation.”

Avila’s laughably pathetic apology reads like he just got spanked and forced to do it by The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops themselves:

“Statements made in my column, ‘Some fundamental questions on same-sex attraction’ of October 28, do not represent the position of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the column was not authorized for publication as is required policy for staff of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The teaching of Sacred Scripture and of the Catechism of the Catholic Church make it clear that all persons are created in the image and likeness of God and have inviolable dignity. Likewise, the Church proclaims the sanctity of marriage as the permanent, faithful, fruitful union of one man and one woman. The Church opposes, as I do too, all unjust discrimination and the violence against persons that unjust discrimination inspires. I deeply apologize for the hurt and confusion that this column has caused.”

Dye his hair and beard black, and Daniel Avila could pass as the Devil in a theatrical production!

It seems Avila got “spanked” because the bishops’ authority was bypassed. He’s lucky it wasn’t a few hundred years ago, where a failure to kowtow when expected could have meant a quick trip to the stake for a “Bishop’s Barbecue.”

Nov 4, 2011 at 8:29 pm · @Reply ·

ian

He’s leading to an eliminationist doctrine. If gay people are created by satan, therefore satanic, then it is ok to view them as sub-human vermin and fire up up the nazi ovens again. Bigots alway attempt to dehumanize the ‘other’ by attributing qualities to the ‘other’ the bigot does not himself possess. That makes it easy to justify any form of discrimination to outright killing. What a bigot never comprehends, is that by attempting to dehumanize another, he only succeeds in dehumanizing himself. That might be called a sin.

On a positive note, his article may have caused some other heretofore anti-gay catholics to think about the road they are traveling on. It is good to see someone in the catholic organization reaffirm the dignity of all people gay or not, and this guy get the boot.

Nov 4, 2011 at 9:47 pm · @Reply ·

RT

Thankfully it seems Christ has saved all of us. None of my friend or I haven’t committed a crime yet.

Nov 5, 2011 at 12:40 pm · @Reply ·

JAW

I am impressed at how quickly The Bishops responded to both Truth wins out and the Paulist Priests… That is OUTSTANDING. The church has been saying that there are Homosexual people… but like hetrosexual people, they say no sex before marriage… now all we need to do is have them let us get married… LOL

On a sad note… if you notice the picture of Avila… he will become the new poster child of all of the far right groups that are listed on the backdrop. I think he will cause more harm there then with the Catholic Church… The guy is an asshole

Nov 5, 2011 at 2:40 pm · @Reply ·

WillBFair

It’s great that they’re backtracking. But really, this comment is a version of what the Catholics have always said about us. For centuries they said we’re ‘unatural.’ Now that we know gayness exists in other species, the old argument doesn’t fly. This creep was trying to update the old line. It’s nice that he failed, but it’ll be interesting to see what will replace the old ‘unatural’ line.

Nov 5, 2011 at 4:13 pm · @Reply ·

Just go out of business already

The Catholic Church is a zombie institution. Nobody, not even devout Catholics, believe its shit anymore — they use condoms, get divorced and remarry, etc. They’re going out of business, fast.

I’m looking forward to the day when they have to put all those empty churches up for sale. As a quick tour of various European cities shows, secular societies do a great job of converting churches to homes, condos and offices.

I for one, am deeply grateful to Avila for revealing to more ordinary people just what nonsense the church theology breeds.

I have nothing but contempt for all those others who immediately disavowed him. Of course his views are outrageous and deluded, but no more than any belief in sky daddy. If they really felt empathy with the families of gays, they’d have been campaigning for gay recognition and equality – not merely distancing themselves when one of their own oversteps the mark so far that they need demonstrate that they are not cut from the same insane cloth.

Nov 5, 2011 at 9:16 pm · @Reply ·

Ogre Magi

So in other-words the Devil made us homos in mockery of God’s creation the way Sauron made the orcs in mockery of the elves! That totally rocks!I would love to be an orc

– pedophile priests raping thousands of children (in the Unites States alone)
– bishops moving more pedophiles to places where they raped more children
– bishops covering it up
– bishops lying about it
– all Catholics shunning the victims

Satan is also responsible for making people think that God hates gays more than God hates child rapists and liars in His church.

For those that don’t understand Public Relations, this is an old school tactic which

– gets the word out to the old ladies in the pews that homosexuality is satanic
– sacrifices an insignificant adviser if there is too much backlash
– tests to see if bishops should say the same thing (and now they know they shouldn’t yet)
– helps to build some strength in the pews against satanic gays

Mostly, it distracts form the fact that tens of thousands of priests had sex with 100,000+ children, and the church consistently moved and hid pedophile priests.

Nov 6, 2011 at 11:11 am · @Reply ·

Max the Communist

“Satan turned my baby gay!”

Sounds like a perfect bit of dialogue for a John Waters’ film.

Nov 6, 2011 at 1:43 pm · @Reply ·

Michael in San Jose

The part of this story that is missing from the ”Daniel Avila once served the Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage as a Policy Advisor for Marriage and Family to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops” is that he worked for Bishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, Chairman of the Subcommittee. In case any of you have forgotten this is the man who single handedly organized and raised the money to pay for hired signature gathers to get Prop 8 on the ballot. This man dressed in Christ’s robes put this issue above the needs of all those who seeks Christ love and grace, above all the orphans and children that need the help and love and resources of the church. A man who used his connection with a radical Princeton professor who bases his world view on writing from men of antiquity who never traveled more than 500 miles from the place they were born to corrupt a church founded by Jesus. Who’s sole purpose to spread the story of how God loved man so much that he would take a human form and laid himself down on a cross and suffer an excruciating and gruesome death. This man is a disgrace to the church and the human race but was he chastised for his work, for the divisions in the church he caused… No… No he was reward by Rome by being appointed Bishop of Oakland and now by the President of the USCCB Cardinal Dolan to head this subcommittee. Call and email the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and tell them this man should not be rewarded for his actions but rebuked this Avila guy was hired by this so called Bishop of the church because he shared his views and his enthusiasm for hurting the thousands of loving gay and lesbian Catholics trying to make it in this world.

Nov 6, 2011 at 2:06 pm · @Reply ·

BigWoody

I don’t know… I did some research and apparently based on old archived Southpark episodes – The Devil is gay. Just ask Sodom Hussein. Hehe ;)

Nov 6, 2011 at 2:48 pm · @Reply ·

ian

@Patrick@Patrick OMalley:
Satan is not responsible for the things you list. Satan, like God, is a fictional character. Human beings are responsible for those things. Human beings who are more concerned with the welfare and perpetuation of a Human created organization than the welfare of their fellow human beings. Anybody who claims, “the devil made me do it.” is just trying to avoid responsibility for their actions.

Nov 6, 2011 at 3:57 pm · @Reply ·

Dan

The next step is to begin having Roman Catholics vote on leadership. Time to put archbishops and bishops up to popular vote.

Michael & Patrick, aren’t you too old to still be believing in fairy stories? You can Package it anyway you like Michael, but the whole god thing is a farcical creation of frightened child-minds.

Nov 6, 2011 at 11:13 pm · @Reply ·

kawneekwa

I luv it when some a-ho’ think he knowd da fundamental rule of shit.
It may be a preacher, doctor, or tv host. Why they sit down pick up a pencil and dream up dis shit when in realty don know what da shit dey talkin about.

Nov 7, 2011 at 2:00 am · @Reply ·

R.A,

Don’t be fooled — the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is still rotten to the core – they just didn’t want to look like total morons.

Right now they’re more interested in destroying Obama’s healthcare plan because it funds birth control.

Nov 7, 2011 at 3:38 am · @Reply ·

Drake

Daniel Avila looks like Ann Coulter with a beard. They both look like Satan’s kids.

I can’t believe there are people so ignorant of science, birth, and the natural world in this day and age. Religion and Catholicism sure shoves some shit down people’s throats, and you have to buy the whole crock just to get community and support.